Philosophies ofSartre and Terrorist Leila Khaled

Sartre's existentialism is based first on the view that God does not exist. Existentialism thereby qualifies as an atheistic philosophy. However, Sartre essentially keeps the moral imperatives of religion as he goes on to construct his philosophy without God. The moral philosophy of religionists is based on the argument that God implants in every person a sense of what is right and what is wrong and that each person is guided to obey moral principles by the essence of God which is in each person. Sartre says, however, that there is no God, which leaves man without external guidance with respect to morality or behavior. However, atheism also frees man to choose for himself what to do, how to act, how to define himself. The religionist believes that "essence precedes existence." In other words, God puts the essence into man before he exists, and that essence (God-defined morality) shapes his existence. Sartre, the atheistic existentialist, believes that "existence precedes essence," which means man first

. . .
us does likewise; but we also mean by that that in making this choice he also chooses all men. . . . To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good, and nothing can be good for us without being good for all (Sartre 514). This is absolute nonsense. If there is no evil, this does not mean that everything one does is good as he sees it, but rather that there is also no good. It is truly a world beyond good and evil, but Sartre is the one who is a coward by failing to follow his philosophy to its logical conclusion. Sartre ineffectually argues that each person somehow will follow a categorical imperative, that one's actions must be sees by the individual as the actions of all people. This is supposed to make the person responsible not only to do good, but to do good in the name of all people. However, why could not a person legitimately choose to kill people and steal their property, believing that There is no God or other moral authority to tell him to do otherwise or to judge him for whatever he does. This is also supposed to create a human community of mutually responsible people. However, why does Sartre assume that a human co
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Despite Sartre, Sartre Khaled, Sartre God, Leila Khaled, Leila Khaled's, Neither Sartre, , Sartre Palestinian, Chicago Loyola, Hunter Brown, human community, world chaos, palestinian cause, precedes essence means, individual whatever, person sartre, free whatever, god moral, world individual, philosophy painfully, existence precedes essence, essence means exists, person free,
Approximate Word count = 1707
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)